


The Fifth Portent of the Apocalypse of Bees

by nwhepcat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Challenge: Giles/Xander Octoberfest, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Africa, Post-Canon, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-05
Updated: 2009-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:31:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander's regaining his strength after a long illness, and Giles comes home to find his own rest. Both have some questions about the past, present and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fifth Portent of the Apocalypse of Bees

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Giles/Xander Octoberfest. Thanks to Huzzlewhat for suggesting the snippet of conversation between these two that launched the whole story.
> 
> Not my sandbox, but I made a castle. Thanks for lending me your shovel and pail, Joss.

Xander is engrossed in his work when a knock sounds at the door of his workshop. It seems early for dinner, but he could have lost track of time. He looks up from the workbench, brushing the hair out of his face as he squints into the sunlight streaming in. He's really got to get that cut.

 

 

It's not one of the slayers come to call him in, but Giles. Xander waves him inside. "Hey. Giles. Back from the amazing expanding training trip." He flicks off the torch, sets it aside and goes to Giles, hand extended.

 

 

"You're looking well." There's relief in his voice as he clasps Xander's hand.

 

 

"If you're going to lie, at least make it plausible."

 

 

"Believe me, you look a great deal better than last time I saw you." To Xander's surprise, Giles pulls him into an embrace, clapping him on the back, then releases him. "They've been feeding you."

 

 

"Force-feeding, more like. I've put a few pounds back on."

 

 

"Well, it's agreeing with you. Your color's better, your energy's returning."

 

 

Xander shrugs. "I can stay on my feet for upwards of ten minutes at a time."

 

 

Giles gestures toward the workbench. "I'd say this is a good sign. Faith said you're working on a birdhouse, but --" He peers at Xander's woodworking project. "I'd venture a guess that she's mistaken."

 

 

"Here, it's okay to touch." Handing the small wooden piece to Giles, he laughs. "Birdhouse. I see where she got the idea. Think they'd believe me if I said it was for the rare African swallow, with a wingspan of six inches, but measuring a quarter inch from beak to tailfeather?"

 

 

Giles smiles. "I think the young ones would lap up anything you told them. So what is it?"

 

 

"It's going to be a kalimba."

 

 

"Of course. This is the soundhole."

 

 

"All that amazing woodworking in Ghana kind of inspired me. Nothing goes to waste. So I scrounged up some scrap wood and some fish tape."

 

 

"Fish tape. Because it's especially handy when one's fish comes unglued."

 

 

"You made a joke."

 

 

"It does sometimes happen. I believe it's the Fifth Portent of the Apocalypse of Bees as written in the Scroll of Samarra."

 

 

"Bees, huh? Well, at least we'll have some novelty in our next apocalypse." Bee apocalypse. Strangely apt, considering the odd buzzing he feels as Giles hands him his half-finished kalimba.

 

 

"Fish tape, you were saying."

 

 

"Oh. Yeah. It's an electrician's tool. A long reel of spring steel. You fish it around enclosed spaces, between walls usually, to guide wires from one place to another. It makes good keys." He picks up the five-inch piece he'd been working on. "I was just heating this to hammer it out. I think the challenging part is going to be tuning the thing when-- _Whoo._" Swaying, Xander sets down the piece of steel and plants his hand on the workbench.

 

 

Giles takes him by the shoulders, steadying him. "What is it?"

 

 

"Ran out of gas. I'll be fine if I sit down."

 

 

Giles looks around the workshop.

 

 

"Out back." His knees are getting a little wobbly, so Giles slings one of Xander's arms over his shoulders and supports him out to the balding patch of lawn behind the workshop. Xander's a little surprised at the muscle that's hidden under all that tweed.

 

 

Giles settles him into one of the peeling Adirondack chairs and hovers. "What can I get for you?"

 

 

"I'm fine. Have a seat." He tips his head back against the chair and closes his eyes a moment as he hears the scrape of Giles pulling up the other chair. "I've gotten better about taking a break before this happens, but now and then I wait too long."

 

 

"Perhaps you should see a doctor again."

 

 

"This is perfectly normal. My tropical disease guy says so. And who would have thought, back when I never got any farther from Sunnydale than Oxnard, that I'd get to fling around phrases like 'my tropical disease guy'?"

 

 

"Yes," Giles says drily. "You're a man to be envied."

 

 

Xander turns to regard him. "I am, you know. I'm beginning to think everyone in the US should travel to the poorest regions of the poorest countries so they can get over themselves a little bit."

 

 

"I believe you're right." Giles looks around the tall weeds and the clutter of broken down, rusted appliances. "And why do you choose to rest back here? Does it remind you to keep perspective?"

 

 

Xander laughs. "No, it keeps me out of view of the mother hens in the house. If they'd seen you half-carrying me out here, there'd be a parade of girls with soup and lap robes and tea. I have some plans for back here when I'm up to it. I'm going to build a patio, slate or bluestone, make some bent willow chairs."

 

 

"It must have taken some doing to get the workshop set up. I believe the shed was almost as much a ruin as this spot, last time I saw it."

 

 

"That was all Faith. I think she needed a hands-on way of apologizing to me about our past. She talked to me about that stuff when she brought me in from the airport, though I didn't give her a lot of encouragement. She wanted to make amends, and I guess saying it wasn't enough."

 

 

Giles nods. "She's quite serious about changing her life."

 

 

"I'm glad. It always felt like we wasted an important chance with her. I think she wanted to belong, in that intense way of hers, and she was so hungry for it that the Mayor swooped right in and got her because he offered her a few crumbs of it. I guess I need to keep that in mind, because I haven't exactly been generous with the bygones."

 

 

"You have less to regret than I do. You reached out to her all those years ago, and nearly lost your life for it." Giles shakes his head. "It was my job to give her that sense of belonging."

 

 

"Not exactly. The Council fired you."

 

 

"No. One can't be sacked from the Council. Watchers of my era were born and bred to the work, it's what we _are_, not merely what we _do_. My status with the Council in no way absolved me of the responsibility I had toward that girl."

 

 

Xander's uncomfortable to see Giles's self-recrimination, something he's never witnessed before in this way. "Hey, I didn't mean to get into this. I've just had a _lot_ of free time for thinking in the last few weeks, and you know that me and thinking are not things you generally want to mix."

 

 

Giles turns toward him, but there's something somehow _still_ about him. "You do that quite a lot."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"Disparage yourself in an effort to salve another person's feelings."

 

 

"Do I?"

 

 

"You're also a master of deflecting a point with a question."

 

 

"Seriously, you think I really do that?"

 

 

"Or humor," Giles says pointedly. He offers a smile. "Don't feel you've stirred up any regrets I haven't felt long before now. A watcher's life and work ensure a lifetime supply of those."

 

 

"You've never talked to me about that before."

 

 

"No. I wouldn't have burdened you with those things when we were in Sunnydale."

 

 

"But things are different now?"

 

 

"Of course they are. You've begun a path with the Council."

 

 

Xander snorts. "I didn't get very far. Barely past the garden gate."

 

 

"You've gone farther than you think. You've suffered for a cause that's important to you."

 

 

"Giles, any idiot can get dengue fever."

 

 

Giles rolls his eyes. "Any idiot who makes the decision to take an active role in safeguarding this world, and gets off his arse to travel to places where dengue fever is prevalent. Perhaps it doesn't seem as heroic as you'd wished, but you have made sacrifices, and you've earned the right to rest and recuperate."

 

 

"Faith says it's my job right now to receive, and that I can make a difference just doing that."

 

 

"That's a remarkably wise comment."

 

 

"I was afraid you'd say that."

 

 

"Why, Xander?"

 

 

"Because it's really hard."

 

 

Giles smiles. "I believe Buffy would say, 'Suck it up and deal.'"

 

 

Xander grins at hearing it from Giles's mouth. "I believe you're right."

 

 

"How would you feel about a garden back here?"

 

 

"As in flowers, not weeds? It's gonna be a while before I'm up to that."

 

 

"No," Giles says, "I meant as a project for me. I've been giving serious thought to taking a sabbatical -- that's the reason I extended this training trip. However, I'd prefer to stay close at hand. I like the thought of working with the soil."

 

 

"That would be nice. Sure, yeah, you're welcome to get your dirt freak on back here."

 

 

***

 

 

Librarian that he is, Giles tackles his project first with an armload of books. Xander invites him to clear the wood scraps off the desk in the workshop and set up there, and soon graph paper and photos of gardens begin taking over the wall above.

 

 

One day the wall is giving serious thought to manicured, bright, well-behaved little flowers. The next day it's leaning toward wild sprays of native plantings.

 

 

"So very un-English," Xander comments, standing at Giles's elbow as he tacks up another photo of tall grasses and flowers.

 

 

"It is, isn't it? I dare say it's not a very watcher-like activity, as well."

 

 

Xander smiles. "Something tells me you're leaning in this direction."

 

 

"I'm not sure."

 

 

"Nothing says you can't do both. Have the manicured thing going right next to the patio -- when there _is_ a patio -- and then go wilder farther out. Put in a path and a couple of benches. I think Faith would really go for that, and we might eventually get some of our more Tiggerish baby slayers to calm down a little if they tried it out." He grins. "Or we could send them there for time-outs."

 

 

"I like that idea. The combination garden, I mean." Giles takes out a fresh piece of graph paper. "You haven't been working on your kalimba today."

 

 

"Yeah, I tore the shit out of my fingers working on the tuning yesterday."

 

 

"Let me see." Taking Xander's hand, he adjusts the draftsman's lamp to shine over it, making a soft cluck of empathy when he sees the ragged, blistered skin. "When those heal, you'll want to coat them with superglue before you continue tuning."

 

 

"Superglue?" It comes out a little blurty, mostly from the effort of not reacting to the charge he feels from Giles's touch.

 

 

"Old guitar players' trick. I used to practice my fingers ragged, back in the day, until someone told me about it."

 

 

"Huh." Giles is still holding his hand, which is leeching every single thought out of his brain, except one. "Giles, I--" But the next thing he says could wreck their friendship, banish it to the land of awkward for an eternity. Xander gently withdraws his hand. "I'll try that."

 

 

He's still off-balance after the fever, can't trust any of his reactions.

 

 

"I haven't done a lot today, but I feel a little tottery. I'm going to head inside for a nap, leave you to plan your garden."

 

 

Xander can't quite read Giles's expression as he readjusts the light and turns toward Xander. "Yes, of course. You must respect your limits. I'll see you at dinnertime."

 

 

***

 

 

After a couple of days hanging around the house waiting for his blisters to heal and his sexual confusion to calm down, Xander feels he's on the verge of psychosis. He can't concentrate on reading and can't find anything engaging to do with himself. The baby slayers flutter around him during their breaks and meals, fussing and treating him as if he's even more fragile than he is. Dawn and Buffy aren't much better, and Faith just smirks and advises him to practice his calling.

 

 

Emma, who's not even seventeen, is crushing on him so hard he can feel her gaze at every meal. She's been finding reasons to need watcherly advice multiple times a day, and the effort to keep things friendly but distant is wearing on him more than tinkering in his workshop.

 

 

After breakfast one morning, she's about to corner him for another heart to heart when Giles returns to the kitchen wearing jeans, a white tee and workboots.

 

 

What Emma's saying turns to staticky white noise.

 

 

"I'm sorry, what?"

 

 

"Faith keeps saying I have to tone down my aggressiveness. But aren't we supposed to be fighters?"

 

 

"Faith's really the best person to explain what she means, but basically, going all berserker isn't going to make you as effective a fighter as discipline will. She knows what she's talking about, Emma."

 

 

"She gets testy when I ask for extra help."

 

 

"Pardon the intrusion, Xander," Giles says. "I'm on my way to the nursery. Are you still planning to accompany me?"

 

 

Xander blinks. "Nursery?" What he knows about babies wouldn't fill a thimble.

 

 

"I'm buying plants. I could use a hand, if you're still willing."

 

 

"Sure, yeah. Sorry, Emma. Prior commitment. Talk to Faith." He gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder and follows Giles out to the truck.

 

 

"I hope that wasn't too ham-handed," Giles says once they're on the road.

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"The pretense that you'd promised to help. You looked like you could use a rescuer."

 

 

Xander shoves his hand through his hair. "I wasn't sure if it was that, or if I'd just forgotten I had promised. My memory's been for shit since I was sick. I appreciate it. Though you're not going to get much of a helper for your good deed."

 

 

"No matter. Your company is enough."

 

 

Xander immediately switches into _No company at all_ mode, the awareness of Giles in tee and jeans tying his tongue completely.

 

 

"Emma has quite a crush on you."

 

 

"You can say that again."

 

 

"Are you at all attracted to her?"

 

_What kind of guy does Giles think he is?_ "God, no. She's totally barking up the wrong tree."

 

 

"I realize you're aware of the age gap, but the knowledge of an inappropriate reaction doesn't always mean you can simply erase it. You just have to deal with it in an appropriate fashion."

 

 

Xander nods. "That makes sense. But no. I wasn't talking about the age tree, but the gender tree. I'm, uh, kind of looking on the other end of the spectrum these days."

 

 

"Ah." Giles pulls into the nursery lot and glides into a parking space. "You're fortunate, then. It's hard to maintain that distance when you actually feel attracted to someone you're a role model for. It's dangerously easy to push them away too forcefully, seem a bit too cold. I've been particularly clumsy at it, when I've been in that position." He shuts off the engine and exits the truck, leaving Xander wondering what the hell just occurred.

 

_Did_ he just sort of come out to Giles? Or was that the most opaque coming-out in the history of ever? Giles didn't even seem to notice. Should he say it again, be more clear? Or is it best to scurry back to Chickenshit Ranch before Giles realizes Xander is crushing on _him_ and things get really awkward?

 

 

Whatever. He's missing his chance to see Giles in jeans carrying heavy stuff. He unfastens his shoulder harness and scrambles to join Giles.

 

 

***

 

 

Xander hammers the shit out of several lengths of fish tape for a kalimba he hasn't even started yet, mostly to have some physical outlet for his confusion. All morning long, he's replayed the conversation in his head, while sneaking peeks at Giles working out back. Giles in jeans, white tee and workboots has _nothing_ on Giles in dirt-smeared jeans, grubby tee and boots. The old Eyghon tattoo winks in and out of view as Giles digs and breaks up the ground.

 

_It's hard to maintain that distance when you actually feel attracted to someone you're a role model for. It's dangerously easy to push them away too forcefully, seem a bit too cold._

 

 

That's just the thing. Xander's been playing these memories over and over, and he doesn't remember Giles being cool with Buffy at all. Or Willow, for that matter. He did go into role model mode a lot, but he doesn't remember him ever seeming cold or distant with them. There was always affection between them, and it never seemed stiff or weird. He'd always wished that Giles had shown that same warmth around --

 

_Oh, shit._

 

 

Xander abruptly sits down. Was that conversation Giles's own opaque coming-out? _I've been particularly clumsy at it, when I've been in that position._

 

 

Impossible. Giles has always been the straightest guy on the Strait of Straightlandia. _I mean, Jenny Calendar, then that Olivia he saw once or twice._

 

_Yeah, well, take a look at yourself. Cordy, then Anya._ All that thinking time in the earliest days of his recovery had made him wonder about some things. Like why he'd always noticed hot guys, and why pegging was his favorite of the 31 Flavors of Anya Sex. (And why occasionally fantasies of hot guys went along with the pegging.) His interest in women was no smokescreen, but his interest in men was just as real, and lately it had been, well, on top.

 

 

Giles, bisexual?

 

 

Hell, Giles sexual at all? They'd all just kinda skated past that thought, the same way Buffy avoided thinking too hard about things when her mother started dating again.

 

 

But --

 

 

He remembers a strange sparkage coming off Giles and Ethan Rayne during the whole demon-unleashed thing, but ... well, shit. He'd just decided it was part of the demonic weirdness in general.

 

 

Okay, Giles bisexual.

 

 

But --

 

 

Giles having inappropriate thoughts about Xander?

 

 

He had kept them well under wraps, if that was true.

 

_But it can't be true._

 

 

Xander finds himself at the window, watching Giles kneeling and breaking up the dark soil between his fingers, then settling a plant into a hole he's made. At this moment it's the sexiest thing he's ever seen.

 

 

But why would Giles have a yen for _him_?

 

 

Suddenly it's absolutely unbearable not to know. Xander reaches into the mini-fridge below his workbench and grabs a couple of microbrews, then steps out onto the scruffy proto-patio.

 

 

"Hey," he says, before he can chicken out and turn and run. "Thought you might like a beer break."

 

 

Giles straightens, dragging an arm across his sweaty brow, leaving a smear of dirt behind. "Brilliant." He rises and takes the offered bottle, sprawling into one of the Adirondack chairs.

 

 

"How's it coming?"

 

 

"I think I'll regret all this activity tomorrow, but it feels good to create something with my hands. I suppose you're well acquainted with that feeling."

 

 

"It helps sort things out when the thinking gets too much."

 

 

Giles tips back his beer, and Xander watches the pulse of his throat as he swallows. "Did all that hammering accomplish something?"

 

 

"I don't know." He works on his own beer for a moment. "I'm not sure how to ask this. I'm afraid no matter how I say it, it's going to screw everything up."

 

 

Giles sets his bottle at his feet and leans forward. "I assure you, nothing you say is going to ruin anything. Tell me what's on your mind."

 

 

Xander scratches at the label of his beer with his thumbnail. "I keep thinking about what you said this morning. About dealing with attraction to someone you shouldn't really be attracted to."

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"And then I keep thinking about -- there is no good way to say this."

 

 

"Choose one of the bad ones." Giles's voice is strangely intense, but somehow kind. "I guarantee it won't sound so terrible."

 

 

But it will. "I always had this feeling. That you -- that you didn't like me as much as you did Buffy and Willow."

 

 

"Yes," Giles says softly. "I suspected you did."

 

 

"So this morning. Were you saying --" This is impossible.

 

 

"That I found you attractive, and I pulled away? Yes."

 

 

Xander blinks. "You were, all that time, having, uh, inappropriate thoughts about me?"

 

 

"Not all that time. I did a helluva lot of compartmentalizing. I recognized the attraction, and I put it aside. But I did create the distance that you noticed. I regret that you mistook the reasons, but at the same time I'm glad you never were aware of what prompted it."

 

 

Xander pushes his hands through his hair. "I really need to get this cut," he says inanely. He thinks of what Giles said the other day. "Things are different." He looks up at Giles. "I'm older. I'm Council now. You talked to me about your doubts."

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"This is ancient history we've been talking about, though."

 

 

"Not, as you're fond of saying, so much."

 

 

"You're still, um, attracted?"

 

 

"Let's call it a rekindling of feelings. But if you don't share them, I will put those feelings aside again. I would never want to do anything that made you uncomfortable."

 

 

A smile twitches at the corner of Xander's mouth. "Not even if I asked?"

 

 

Giles's brow furrows.

 

 

"Sorry. That was a joke. Kind of." Xander pushes out of his chair. "But I'm perfectly serious about this: I do share your feelings. It's been _killing_ me all morning, watching you work out here. Seeing you in jeans and workboots -- seriously. My brain has been melting and running out my ears for the last three hours."

 

 

Color rises in Giles's face, and he looks away, out over the garden, as if he's trying to think of something to say.

 

 

"I think somebody needs to kiss somebody," Xander says. He holds his hand out to Giles, who takes it and rises from his own chair.

 

 

Xander feathers his fingers along the curve of Giles's jaw, to the nape of his neck. "Hey, you're wearing your earring again."

 

 

"I'm off duty again." Giles moves his own hand to trace Xander's face. "Please don't do it."

 

 

"Do what?"

 

 

"Cut your hair. I like it this way." He leans so close Xander can feel the flutter of Giles's breath on his lips.

 

 

Xander meets him halfway, lips meeting lips softly at first, then with a growing heat and hunger, joy and desire buzzing through his blood like thousands upon thousands of bees.

 

 

Apocalypse of Bees.

 

 

Not a bad way to go.


End file.
